Impossible Mission
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
_________________________

Impossible Mission is a platform computer game for several home computers. The original version for the Commodore 64 was programmed by Dennis Caswell and published by Epyx in 1984. 

Impossible Mission has the user play a secret agent - attempting to stop an evil genius. Professor Elvin Atombender is believed to be tampering with national security computers. The player must penetrate Atombender's stronghold, racing against the clock to search the installation for pieces which form a password, all the while avoiding his deadly robots. Once in possession of all the password pieces, the player must correctly assemble the password pieces together and use the completed password in the main control room door - where the evil professor is hiding. One finds password pieces by searching furniture in the rooms. When searching, one can also find "Lift Resets" and "Snoozes." They are used at computer terminals. The former will reset all moveable platforms, the latter will freeze all enemies in the room for a limited time. There are also two special rooms where additional lift resets and snoozes can be awarded for completing a musical puzzle. 

The location of puzzle pieces, arrangement of the rooms and elevators, and abilities of the robots are randomly distributed each game, providing replay value. Caswell cites Rogue as his inspiration for the randomised room layouts.

The Commodore 64 version is notable for its early use of digitized speech. The digitized speech was provided by the company Electronic Speech Systems, who drastically raised their prices after Impossible Mission became a successful test case. Epyx did not deal with ESS again as a result. The digitized speech included: 
the player character's death scream as he falls into a lift shaft. This scream was later re-used in another game Beach Head II: The Dictator Strikes Back. 
Professor Atombender's opening line: "Another visitor. Stay awhile... staaaaay FOREVER!" Other prominent lines are his exclamation, "Destroy him, my robots!", a devilish laugh when the clock runs out and the game is over, and admitting defeat shouting, "No. No! NO!" 
a female voice saying "Mission Accomplished. Congratulations!" when the game had been completed.
Trivia

 On the Atari 7800, the name of the game can be taken literally. Due to a bug in the program the NTSC release cannot not be completed. Some of the items you need are hidden under terminals that cannot be searched. This was fixed for the PAL release. 

 On the Commodore 64 version. The game is well known for the use of synthesized speech. Electronic Speech Synthesis (the company that developed the sampled speech for the game) used this game as a test sample.

When this sample was a successful game, Electronic Speech Synthesis (ESS) significantly raised their prices. This caused Epyx to never use their services again (although Impossible Mission II uses ESS, Novotrade developed the game, and they were the same sampled speech tracks used in this game). 

Awards
FLUX 
Issue #4 - #92 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" list
Happy Computer 
Issue 02/1986 - #7 Best Game in 1985 (Readers' Vote) 
Retro Gamer 
Issue 37 - #12 in the "Top 25 Platformers of All Time" poll

---

Description from the packaging:

Impossible. It's been a long time since the Agency stamped a mission that way. (Back then, agents had numbers like 006 and 007.) But the Agency has never faced a foe like the fiendishly clever Elvin. Until now.

Your mission. Agent 4125 (we've lost an agent or two since 007), is to foil Elvin's horrible plot. From his underground laboratory, the nefarious scientist is holding the world's population hostage under the threat of nuclear annihilation. You must penetrate the room sand tunnels of his stronghold, avoid his human-seeking robots and search for the pieces of his security code.

Somersault over the robots or use a precious snooze code to deactivate them long enough to search each room. As you find code pieces, the Agency's computer will help you unscramble the passwords, or you can try to solve them yourself. You've got to reach Elvin's control center, but you'd better watch your step... They didn't stamp this Impossible for nothing!

32 Rooms with 90 different robots for never-ending challenge.
Computer assisted puzzle solving (Over 240 different variations).
Room configuration and robot defenses change in each game.
Voice synthesis for added realism.
Joystick controlled.
One player.


http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=38479&type=Software
http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/impossible-mission
